Big Data Meets Social Networking in the Enterprise

One of the most valuable things about social networking is all the data that is gathered, especially about potential customers. The trouble from an IT perspective is that, until recently, it's been generally cost-prohibitive to first gather all that data and then analyze it. The end result is that companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Google wind up knowing more about what people think of your company than you do.

But Rod Smith, vice president of emerging technology for the IBM Software Group, notes that with the advent of various approaches to gathering Big Data, it's become a whole lot easier for companies to gather all the information and then analyze it themselves. That not only reduces dependency on the small number of companies that today dominate the social networking space, it allows companies to be smarter about how to respond to various events involving them, their customers, suppliers, partners or competitors.

We're rapidly approaching a point where the need to make a decision based on instinct and experience without any data to collaborate that decision is becoming obsolete. That doesn't mean that gut decisions won't continue to play a role in making those decisions, but it does mean that a lot of the guesswork that goes into running the business today is about to get sharply reduced.